


Regret

by orphan_account



Category: Smosh
Genre: Angst, Anthony Padilla - Freeform, Death, M/M, Regret, anthony - Freeform, smosh - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4568688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been three days. All the Smosh channels are dark. No one from Smosh has posted anything in three days. All the others have taken a beating, but he struggles the most to cope with this drastic change in his life, and he will never be the same again.<br/>Ianthony/Smosh ones-shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regret

**Author's Note:**

> So my friend sent me this tumblr post, and it was about Ianthony possibly happening in the future. I was like "Awwwww! Unless one of them dies,"(that's the short version of the story)  
> And then I went off and, well, this terrible terrible thought formed.  
> Sad music is not required although it is advised  
> Also, at times this may seem like it's going to be an Anthony/Mari fic. It's not, they're just really close friends here.

Three days. 

Three days since any of them had made anything. 

Three days since any of them had posted anything.

Three days since any of them had laughed or smiled. 

The hate comments started flooding in, and the number of subscribers plummeted. 

But none of them cared, because one of their own had passed on. 

It had happened so fast. The two were talking to a camera, saying what they were going to go get for lunch that day. They were barely five minutes from the house. Then it was over in a flash. 

The truck had come across the intersection, flying right through the red light. It slammed straight into the passenger side of the car, killing the occupant of that seat instantly. 

Both of them had been airlifted to the hospital, but one was already dead. It didn’t matter how fast they got there, only one of them was to survive. It wasn’t too much effort to keep the other alive. They didn’t even have to take him to the hospital. He was meant to live. 

The only reason he was injured enough to be brought to the hospital was so he could be the first to receive the bad news.

Ian Hecox was dead. 

Anthony didn’t know what to do when he heard the news. He had been sitting in a hospital bed with a cast on his arm, and IV in his other, stitches in his forehead. The first thing he did was just sit there, and focus on the pounding in his head. He just sat there in shock when he had been told. This wasn’t happening, not to him. His best friend wasn’t dead. They were going to grow old together, they were going to spend the rest of their lives together in a friendly, non-sexual way. Now it was gone. 

Then he screamed, lord did he scream. One might think he was giving birth he screamed so loud. The screaming came hand in hand with the tears when the reality hit him. When it hit him that he would never see Ian again. He would never see the boy smile, never hear him laugh, never hear him make another joke. He was gone forever. 

That’s when he stood. That’s when he got out of bed, and threw the sheets across the room. He stomped across the room, the IV ripping out of his arm, but he didn’t even noticed. He picked up a chair that sat in the corner, and threw it. It hit the wall with a bang. A nurse tried to restrain him, but he just pushed her off of him as he grabbed the soap, which he also threw across the room. It hit the window, cracking the window and exploding open. He pushed the lamp off the table, and it crashed to the floor, broken. Then he was grabbed by someone stronger. He tried to fight them off, but they wouldn’t budge. He felt a needle go into his lower back, and in an instant he was asleep.

***

It was dark outside when he woke up again. At first he panicked, not recognizing where he was. As soon as he saw the cracked window it all came flooding back to him. The needle, the tantrum, the news. Then the tears started coming again.

His sobs had turned to hyperventilation. He took a moment to slow his breathing. He managed to do that, but the tears just kept flowing. He couldn’t stop those, and he didn’t see a need to. 

He looked at his bedside table, noticing for the first time what was there. Two cracked cell phones, and a cracked camera. 

One of the cell phones was in ruins. Anthony picked it up and tried to the power button. He didn’t think it would work, and it didn’t. He picked up the other, less destroyed phone. This one worked, it only had a large crack in the screen. This phone was his, the demolished one was Ian’s.

Then he looked at the camera. If the camera still functioned, it probably had the footage of what had happened. He picked it up, and tried the power. It turned on. He went back through the footage, and found where they had started recording. 

***

“Hellooooooo,” Ian said, “you’re watching Lunchtime with Smosh,”

“Yeah,” Anthony said bluntly as he began driving away from the house. 

“So Anthony, what are we eating today?” Ian asked. 

“We are going to get pizza,” Anthony said, taking his eyes off the road for a second. 

Then it happened. First there was a truck horn, then a crash. The glass shattered, spraying everywhere. Ian had fallen over, and the camera pointed directly. He was unconscious, his forehead was bleeding, and there was bone sticking out of his arm.

***

Anthony closed the camera. He had seen enough. He had seen his best friends last word, and they weren’t even the real him. Anthony had always imagined that they would be on their deathbeds together, and say the most amazing and badass last words ever.

Ian’s last words were spoken cheerily, and a stupid voice, ‘So Anthony, what are we eating today?’.

They hadn’t even come from him, these words were almost scripted. He said them almost every week. He was so frustrated that his friend’s life had been cut short because in a way, his was as well. 

Anthony knew that after this moment he would never be the same. He would never be the same without Ian. He had always thought that they were meant to be best friends, since they had been since sixth grade. How many people can say they’re still best friends with their best friend from sixth grade? Ian and Anthony could. Anthony had known Ian more of his life than not, so Anthony didn’t know what on earth to do. 

He looked at his cracked phone. He needed to tell someone, hell he needed to tell everyone. He picked up his phone. At first, he considered putting it on a group text with everyone from Smosh. Then he decided against it. This was too personal to be told to everyone at one time. Plus, Ian was on that message. He did not want to send that to Ian. 

So he sent the message to everyone individually. He didn’t even know what to say. At first he just started with Ian is dead. Then he decided that that was too straight to the point. He didn’t want to sugar coat it, but that was too blunt. It took him some time, but he settled on this:

Hey, look, so umm, Ian and I got in a car accident earlier.  
A truck came barreling through a red light and slammed into us.  
So I’m okay. I’m at the hospital, come and see me if you want. I’ll be waiting.  
And umm...this is really hard.  
Ian...Ian didn’t make it. He was killed as soon as the truck hit us. 

He copied the text, and sent it to all their friends. He sent the same message to his parents, along with Ian’s parents as well. He knew that soon everyone would be at the hospital. He looked at the IV and took it out of his arm. He found the valve that pinched the tube so the liquid wouldn’t drip. He put a bandage on the spot he removed the IV, which was right next to the spot that the needle had been ripped out earlier. He thought he felt a stitch underneath the bandage. 

He changed out of the hospital gown, and into his clothes, which sat on the chair he had previously thrown across the room. He pocketed his phone, Ian’s, and he held the broken camera in his good hand. Face still teared stained he moved towards the door. 

He peeked his head out. There was no one in the hallway. He saw a sign that said waiting room, and he followed it. He saw an empty chair right by the entrance, and he slipped into it. Then he began bawling once again. He didn’t care about the strange looks that he was getting from everyone else there. His best friend was dead. 

He had begun to sob rather loudly when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and saw David standing there, there were some tears running down his cheeks as well. Anthony immediately stood and pulled his friend into a hug. He sobbed into his shoulder, unable to control himself. 

“It’s okay,” David whispered softly, “it’s okay,”

“NO IT’S NOT!” Anthony screaming, continuing to sob loudly into David’s shoulder. 

Anthony’s whole body was shaking. He was a quivering, distraught mess. His friends had never seen him like this, but he didn’t care. He let the snout and tears cover his face as he sobbed into David’s shoulder. He didn’t care what people thought of him, his image didn’t matter to him anymore. His image had always included his best friend standing next to him. Now that image was torn, and it would never be the same again. 

Joven came in next. It was strange seeing tears stream down the large man’s face, but at the same time it was probably strange for him to see Anthony hunched over and quivering. He had joined the hug as well. David had stopped with the reassurance, it was just silent support now. They were all there for one another; they didn’t even have to say anything to know it was true.

The rest was all a blur to Anthony. He remembered seeing all of their faces before nurses found him, and dragged him back to his room. They didn’t even bother to put the gown back on him. They put him back in his room, and locked the door. He was unstable and they knew that. They didn’t know what to do with him. They knew he wasn’t a threat to their lives or anyone else’s. They decided that it was best to sedate him until they found out what to do, and that’s what they did. 

 

***

Once again, Anthony woke up confused. Then the pain all flooded back in once again. It came and it wouldn’t stop. He thought that at this point, almost a day later, he would be out of tears to shed, but he was no where near that. He had lost his best friend of fifteen years, and those were the best fifteen years of his life. He had done so much, and his best friend had been at his side the entire time. Except for now, now it was gone. 

A little while after Anthony woke up, his friends flooded into the room. They scattered themselves throughout it. There were two chairs that no one fought over, just the first two people in the room sat in them. Those two people happened to be Keith and Matt. The others sat around the room, against the wall, against the bed, against the nightstand. Joven sat on the windowsill. He just stared off into the distance, the dark, gloomy, rainy distance. 

The room was almost silent. The tears flowed freely, and the only sound was the occasional sniffle, or shifting or a body. A nurse came by every hour to make sure Anthony was staying put, and wasn’t ripping his IV out of his arm for a third time. He didn’t care anymore, he was numb to the pain. The pain in his broken arm had become almost nothing. The only pain he felt was the pain in his head, and his heart, each were intensified with crying, and he couldn’t help it. 

At one point during the day, Mari had stood, and sat on the bed next to Anthony. She had placed her hand overtop of his, just to let him know she was there. It was to reassure him that he still had friends. He couldn’t bring himself to smile, but he nodded slightly to acknowledge that he appreciated it. 

It was three o’clock, and that’s when the doctor came in. 

The doctor told them all that they were welcome to see Ian’s body. Anthony was the first one on his feet, nearly ripping a third IV from his arm. A nurse had quickly come over and removed it properly. Everyone followed the doctor in silence. No one wanted to go see their dead best friend, but everyone felt they had to. 

This wasn’t really Ian. It was his body, but it wasn’t him. As soon as Anthony got close enough, he could tell that there was makeup on his face. That’s why there was still color in it. There were cuts, and bruises, and broken bones that just couldn’t be covered by makeup. 

“How did he die?” Anthony croaked out. He hadn’t spoken since he had screamed in the emergency room with David the night before. His voice was sore. 

“Car crash,” the doctor replied, “you were there…”

“No no no,” Anthony said, “how did he die? What was so damaged that it couldn’t be fixed?” Anthony asked. 

“His uh, his neck was snapped on impact,” the doctor said, “and if that hadn’t killed him, the snapped rib that impaled his lung and his heart would’ve,”

Anthony nodded, staring down at his best friend. The tears fell from his face and onto Ian’s. As the tears rolled to the ground, it took some of the makeup with it. It left a line of pale skin, paler than Anthony had expected. He wanted to see his friend as he was, but he also wanted to see him how he is. Anthony didn’t know what he wanted to see, so he turned away. 

“Can I go home now, please?” Anthony asked. The doctor exhaled but then nodded. A wrote Anthony a release form and handed it to him. Anthony took it then nodded slightly and walked from the room. He walked through the emergency room, his friends in tow. All had puffy eyes and tear stained faces. A nurse tried to stop him at the door, but Anthony just handed her the paper and continued on his way. 

***

That night, Anthony laid alone in his bed. He was crying. He honestly couldn’t remember a time his face wasn’t soaking wet and quivering. He was alone. His parents were going to be here tomorrow, and so were Ian’s. He didn’t know if he could even bare to see him. Over the years, Anthony’s parents had thought Ian as their son, he was so close with Anthony, and Ian’s parents felt the same. 

He would have to though. He would have to face Ian’s parents knowing that if he had taken a second to look both ways, their son might be alive. If he hadn’t offered to drive, their son might be alive right now. He didn’t know if he could face them, knowing their were numerous ways he could’ve saved Ian’s life. That he had been careless, as usual, and it had gotten his best friend killed. 

He had to think about it though. Every other day, he didn’t look both ways before going through a green light. On an ordinary day, he would offer to drive, especially if it was his turn. This could’ve happened on any one of the days they had gone out driving together, yet it was this day, and Anthony was blaming himself for doing what he always does. He had no control over what was to happen that day, and he couldn’t comprehend that. He kept thinking back to things he could’ve done differently, but at the end of the day, Ian was meant to die. He was meant to die that day in time, and there was nothing Anthony Padilla could do about it. And it killed him that he couldn’t.

There was a knock at his door that woke him off. Some time, when he was deep in thought, he drifted off, and this knock woke him up. He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It read two am, exactly. He got up, and tried wiping the dried tears and snot from his face, but they wouldn’t budge. He didn’t care. Whoever was going to show up at his door at two am had to be close. 

He walked slowly into the living room, and over to the front door. He unlocked it, and pulled it open. Standing on the front porch were his parents. 

“Mom,” Anthony said, his voice cracking. She opened up her arms, and he fell into them, sobbing. He gripped his mother tightly, not wanting to let go. She understood. She understood loss. Both her parents had died in the last five years. Anthony had felt that loss too, but not like she did. Now Anthony understood. Losing Ian was like him losing a brother, a family member, it was the same sort of pain, and now everyone standing on the front porch knew exactly what it felt like. 

***

Ian’s parents arrived that morning. They were staying at a hotel nearby. Anthony had to go see them. He didn’t want to, he really didn’t want to, but his parents made him. His parents made him go and see Ian’s. He couldn’t bare it. He couldn’t bare the pain on Ian’s mother’s face. The pain on his father’s. He tried to hide it, but he did a terrible job. Anthony’s had embraced them both, along with Anthony’s parents, then Anthony was left to tell the story. 

So he told them. He told them of how it was like it was every time they filmed lunchtime. Wasn’t raining, wasn’t gloomy, a little cloudy but mostly sunny that day. Anthony had always expected that on the day he or Ian was to die it would be raining. Then he realized that people die all the time, on regular, sunny days. He expected it to be gloomier, he blamed the weather for not warning him. 

He told them how it was his turn to drive, and if it had just happened a week earlier, or later, it would’ve been him. He told them how they were nearly five minutes from the house, how he also didn’t expect it to happen so close to home. That they had driven through that intersection too many times to count, that nothing had ever happened there, not that they knew anyways. 

Then he told them of the green light. It had just turned and the two cars in front of them began moving. Those two cars made it through just fine, but as they were crossing the intersection, they heard the horn of a truck, and then a crash. He told them that that was when their son died. That he had died when the truck hit them. He did not tell them he had it on camera. He did not want to tell them, he did not want to have it on camera, but he couldn’t deny that he did. He told him that the next thing he knew he was waking up in the hospital and being told that Ian was dead. 

Ian’s mom sobbed as Anthony told the story, and Ian’s dad held her tightly. Tears ran down his cheeks as well, and that was expected. He tried to be a man; hide his emotions, but he didn’t need to. He had just lost his son, he had every right to cry. As did Anthony, the tears had run down his cheeks while telling the story, once he had gotten to when they were actually crossing the intersection he could barely keep it together. He had to take a moment and sob into his mom’s shoulder. Then he had finished telling his story. Then he left, he couldn’t take it any longer. 

***

When he got home, all his friends were there, sitting in his living room silently. They had all turned when he entered. How had they gotten in? He had locked the house before he left, and if he hadn’t his mother would have. He couldn’t remember giving any of them a key. Wes held one up, it had SPARE written across it. Anthony nodded. The spare key he kept tucked behind a brick next to the door. 

“What are you doing here?” Anthony asked. 

“We’ve decided we’re going to remember Ian,” David said said. 

“We realized that we’ve all been thinking of Ian,” Courtney said, “and that the image we have of him in our heads keeps changing as we try to remember him. It’s changing into what we want him to be; our heads miss the flaws, and that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to remember him the right way,”

Anthony nodded. He went and sat down on the couch between Joven and Noah. Mari squeezed in next to him. 

“How are we going to do that?” Anthony asked, “all the video we have. It’s not Ian. It’s a character,”

“We have old footage,” Noah said, “old behind the scenes footage, old footage that was never released. We’ll see the real Ian,”

Anthony nodded again. David and Matt were in front of the TV with a laptop. They had plugged the laptop into the TV, and opened a video file. Then they played it. 

They sat there for hours, watching footage from every channel. Footage of them, and of Ian. All of them had started crying once again. They were mostly silent tears, but there would be the occasional sniffle. Mari had her head on Anthony’s shoulder, and Anthony didn’t do anything to tell her to move. He liked her closeness, it made him feel a little less alone. Although the truth was, now, he would always be alone.

He had a weird feeling in his chest as he watched these videos. He had been feeling it for a while now, almost a year, and it happened even more so around Ian and he couldn’t put a finger on what it was. After his death, Anthony immediately thought it was anger, and pain, but now he thought it was something different. He didn’t know what he thought it was, he just knew it wasn’t pain. The pain was another feeling entirely, but this was strange. He felt it most when watching these videos. 

He had tried to ignore it, considering he didn’t know what it was, especially before Ian’s death, but now that it had happened, now that he was gone, he didn’t want to lose this feeling, he didn’t want to ignore it. This feeling reminded him of Ian, and he wasn’t going to let it go. He didn’t know how he could keep it, or if he was going to stay on it’s own, all he knew is that he would have to keep it. 

“Guys,” Shayne said, “what about the channels? What’ll happen to them?”

“I don’t care about the channels,” Anthony replied, being ripped from his thoughts, from his feelings, from his thoughts of Ian. 

“But if you’ve checked the emails,” David said, “the hate comments are flooding in and the numbers of subscribers is plummeting. Pretty soon, YouTube will be on our asses,”

“I don’t care,” Anthony said. 

“But Anthony…” Mari began.

“I DON’T CARE!” Anthony yelled, standing up, “get out of my house,”

Everyone stared at him in shock, but then obeyed, understanding what their friend was going through. They slowly made their way out, everyone looking back once or twice to see if Anthony had changed his mind. He hadn’t, so they made their way out. After he heard the door close, he broke down and sobbed. It was loud, and he was alone, he felt alone and he knew he was alone. He didn’t know who else to go to. His parents were out comforting the Hecoxs, he had just sent all his friends away. Then he got an idea. He went into his office, and picked up a camera. 

“Hey guys,” he said, after turning the camera on. He was sitting on his bed, a tripod in front of him, and the camera sitting on that. He had made a decision. Shayne and the others had made a point. They couldn’t just ignore their channels, they needed to do something, say something to them. After this news, they would definitely lose more subscribers, but it didn’t matter. They would know, and he would feel better knowing that they wouldn’t be losing subscribers because of no content, they’d have a reason.

“I know it’s been three days since we’ve posted anything on any of our channels and I’m sorry about that,” Anthony said, “but the truth is something happened. There was an accident three days ago,”

He looked down at his lap, then back up at the camera. He sniffled, and wiped a tear from his cheek. He glanced to his left, to the mirror, and saw he looked like a sobbing mess.

“Some of you, based on my aloneness and my face and my arm might’ve put it together already, but I’m going to tell you the story of what happened first,” Anthony said, “Ian and I...we were filming Lunchtime with Smosh. We were driving down the road, and through an intersection. The light was green. Then a truck came barreling through the intersection; their light was red, and well, it hit our car head on. Ian was on the passenger side. He got the full blast and…”

He put his casted hand to his mouth as he began shaking. The tears began flowing as he struggled to say anything. He couldn’t finish this, he couldn’t. He had told the Hecoxs, but that was different, he was alone then, at least not completely. Now he was. No parents, no friends, no Ian. He didn’t want to finish, he didn’t think he could. He couldn’t. He reached his good hand to turn the camera off, but a hand grabbed his wrist. He looked up and saw his friends standing there. All of them. David picked the camera up off the tripod and held it so that all them were in view. 

“Hey guys, Lasercorn here,” he said, “like Anthony was saying, most of you had probably already figured it out. There’s one missing from our group right now, and I’m sure you know who it is. Ian Hecox was killed in a car accident, on impact, on August 13th, 2015.

“I don’t know what is going to become of any of these channels, all I know is that for now, there will be little to no content coming from any of them. We appreciate you sticking with us all of these years,” David smiled weakly, “but things are different now, and we don’t know what’s going to happen next. So, I guess for now, this is goodbye,” 

He put a hand up to wave, and the others did as well. Anthony had gotten up, and joined the group behind him. David turned the camera off, and set it back down on the tripod. 

“Thank you,” Anthony said softly. David nodded, and pulled him in for a hug. Mari joined, then Noah, and soon, everyone was wrapped around Anthony, sharing their affection, trying to make him feel better. It was nice, yes, and it filled some void, but the void Ian left was too large, and it was still very much empty. 

***

That night, Anthony laid alone in his bed. David had promised to upload the video, unedited, to all the Smosh channels by morning, and they left Anthony in peace. His parents had come home a little while ago, bringing vegan pizza with them, but Anthony refused to eat it. He had just gone to his room. 

He laid there in the dark, the only light in the room was his phone. He was doing something he never thought he would do. He was reading fanfiction. Ian had a strange spot for the stuff in his heart, and he didn’t exactly understand it. He never appreciated it while Ian was alive, he had made fun of him for it, and honestly most of it he was grossed out by. 

But he read it. He read all sorts of them, from ones where the two of them were just friends, to one where they were much more than that. Ones where they were superheroes, others where they were just goofing off with their friends. He reread all the ones him and Ian had read together in the past. He had even gotten the balls to read the milk fanfiction that Ian had told him about. 

Anthony learned two things from these fanfictions. He learned what truly went on in people’s heads, and he learned that he wasn’t disgusted by them. He didn’t understand why, he had always been disgusted by them. He hadn’t read a fanfiction in almost a year because of it. He didn’t understand what was different now. He didn’t understand what was going on. He didn’t understand why he actually enjoyed reading these things.

He didn’t understand why he didn’t want to stop. 

***

It had been a week since they made the video. It had been a week since the world found out that Ian Hecox was dead. A week was a long time, long enough to plan a funeral, and that’s what today was. August 20th, 2015, the day of Ian Hecoxs funeral. 

Anthony wore a black suit, as did all the men. The funeral was small. Ian’s family, Anthony’s parents, and the Smosh crew. The men all wore identical black suits. The girls, different variations of black dresses. Anthony had been asked to speak at the funeral, but he had turned it down. He knew he wouldn’t be able to handle it. He would break down on that stage, and beg for his friend back, if he could even get those words out. 

So now he sat in the audience, left to his thoughts. He had gone out of respect, but he felt no need to. This was his best friend’s funeral, but in Anthony’s mind, it had nothing to do with his best friends. He back when he went to his first funeral, when he was still in high school, he realized that funerals were not for the dead. That funerals were for the living. It was reassurance that their loved ones weren’t forgotten. Anthony thought it was stupid. 

In Anthony’s mind, the true way to honor the dead was to remember them as they were. Remember what they had done, and who they were. Anthony felt he had done Ian justice, that day him and his friends sat, and remembered Ian. After they had filmed the video, they had all sat around Anthony’s bedroom, and talked about Ian. They all had cried of course, but they remembered him well. That was the best day he had had since Ian died.

He was crying now. He had seen Ian’s body for the very last time. He had seen Ian’s blue eyes for the very last time. He had seen Ian’s bowl hair for the last time. The pain in his chest was even greater than it was before, and so was that other feeling. He still didn’t know what on earth it was. He was crying now knowing he had seen Ian, in person, for the last time in his life. 

Ian’s parents spoke about him, and so did Anthony’s. Everyone around him had cried about the memories of the boy, and Anthony sat silently in the back. Now it was a gloomy day. He didn’t know what would be worse. A gloomy day on the day of his best friend’s death, or his best friend’s funeral. He then decided it would be death. He himself would rather see the sun one last time before he died, not rain clouds. So he felt better, in a sense, knowing Ian had seen sun in his last moments. 

Anthony stayed long after he had to. He watched them lower Ian’s body into the ground. He watch them bury him. He had of course been shooed away, but he stood on the treeline and watched them shovel dirt into the hole. He stood there, thinking about Ian, remembered him, as Ian would’ve wanted. As Ian would’ve done for him. He cursed himself. He wished he had been the one to die that day. Ian didn’t deserve to die. 

***

Most nights, Anthony would just sit on his front porch, and stare at the moon. He would let the tears stream down his moonlit face while he was alone. Now that the funeral had passed, he wasn’t supposed to be upset anymore. So when he was around people, he couldn’t cry. He wasn’t happy, he never made a joke, never laughed, never smiled. None of his friends did either, but he they had stopped crying around each other. 

They had made two videos for the channels. One was a memorial video to Ian, to join the countless others made on YouTube by fans. They had also made another, saying that they were going on a brief hiatus, and would probably be back sometime between the time the school year started and Halloween. 

When there was no moon for Anthony to stare at, he would often just sit and cry, facing the fact that he was now alone in this world. His parents had gone back home a few days ago, and when he was at home, and there was no big bright moon to stare at he felt alone. There was no Ian to comfort him. 

Worse than that, the strange feeling in his chest had gotten stronger. He still had no idea what it was. He was kind of glad that he didn’t need to struggle to keep it, but it was also killing him to know what it was. It was the next day when he found out. 

Ian’s parents had invited him to come help them clean out Ian’s place. They also told him he was welcomed to take whatever it was he wanted. Anthony went both out of curiosity and politeness. He had shown up at the house, and there was a sad feeling when he entered. There were boxes and garbage bags scattered about. Ian’s parents told him they would take care of throwing things out for now. They told Anthony to go through the house and take whatever he wanted. 

So Anthony did what he was told. He had gone through the house and taken the little things. Nothing too big, nothing too valuable. He only took the stuff with sentimental value between him and Ian. Most of that stuff, Ian kept on shelves in his room. Anthony took knick-knacks and things no one would think twice about throwing out. Anthony didn’t know what he would do without these items.

He was going through Ian’s desk drawers when he found it. A card in a blue envelope, with his name written on the back in Ian’s handwriting. He gulped, and opened it. It was a birthday card. Anthony opened it, and saw writing all over the blank side. He took a deep breath, and began reading. 

Dear Anthony, 

Happy birthday, first off. I don’t know exactly which birthday it is considering I’ve been trying to give you a card like this for years. You’ll find out in a minute what I mean. I rewrote this every year because I would always get one with the correct number on it, then write the correct number inside. Then I got tired of writing it so I got a generic birthday card, and decided to write this message in it. Also, if I die, I can die knowing this message made it to your hands. So I guess I’ll spit it out. Anthony, I’m in love with you. Not in like the friendly way, but in the affectionate, loving, boyfriend way. That’s why I enjoy the fanfiction, that’s why I hesitate when things like this come up. I lie because I don’t want you to judge me, or reject me. Either way you know now, so sorry if I made this awkward between us I just needed to get that off my chest. 

Happy Birthday.  
Love, Ian

That’s when Anthony understood. That’s when he finally realized what that strange feeling in his chest was. That strange feeling was love. He was in love with Ian, and now Ian died not knowing that he felt the same way. 

He regretted that, oh boy did he regret that. He had regretted a lot of things since Ian’s death, but this was by far the highest on his list of regrets. He regretted not realizing his feelings sooner, he regretted not telling Ian, he regretted letting Ian die not knowing that Anthony was in love with him too.

“Ian I am in love with you,” Anthony said, “and I promise I will see you again,”

***

That night he left the bottle on the bathroom counter completely empty, then there was darkness. 

***

Anthony woke up again, surrounded by light. He most certainly wasn’t in his bathroom anymore. He sat up, and looked around, seeing a figure at the end of the long hallway. He only saw the outline of a body. He stood, trying to get a better look at the face, trying to recognize him. Then he did. He ran down the hallway, and the second he reached him he pressed his lips against his. 

“I love you, Ian,” Anthony said. 

“I’m sorry I left,” Ian replied. Anthony kissed him again.

And with that, all the feelings in Anthony’s chest were gone.

**Author's Note:**

> So...yeah. I did that. I feel kinda bad to be honest.  
> Anyway, I will be back to posting my other stories on a regular schedule, because I took a break from them to write this one.  
> Don't hate me, my other stories aren't nearly this sad.


End file.
